The format, with Stuart Maconie compering was the same, as was the forty piece orchestra, and running order.
Once again there were six lead vocalists, three male, three female. The three male leads were unchanged, at least two of the three female leads were different
Highlights included “the Night and “there’s a Ghost in my House”
The backing singers were exemplary
There is nothing like the sound of a full orchestra
I had enjoyed it so much first time that I brought my football fan sons aged 36 and 43 respectively to sample its delights. They were both equally impressed enjoying the nostalgia of having their youthful England football fan experiences brought back to life, for better and for worse!
With the mystery of how the show was going to unfold solved from my previous visit I was able to sit back and enjoy the proceedings. This time the quality of the impersonations and humour shone through as did the character of Pippa Grange.
And again the response from non football fans, particularly women not familiar with the story, was anecdotally around me, very strong.
Two days from now I shall be watching director Rupert Goold’s highly controversial reimagining of Hamlet- on a ship. I shall report back
Edison lighthouse- Love grows where my rosemary goes
A cracking combination of the opening T Rex “get it on” groove, and a glorious chorus. irresistible
Anita ward-Ring my Bell
The only song to glorify female genital stimulation
3, Ram jam band – Black Betty
A poor man’s “Radar love”
Wild Cherry- Play that Funky Music
The apogee of funk- covered live by prince.
Van mcCoy- the Hustle
A sublime largely instrumental shuffle
Terry Jacks- Seasons in the Sun
A perfect sunny summer reminiscence immortalised by the football fans chant: “We had joy we had fun we had Tottenham on the run but the joy didnt last as the rascals ran too fast”
Carl douglas- King fu fighting
Beloved by eldest brothers, and feared by younger brothers, everywhere as child siblings played out the song at home
Stealers wheel- Stuck in the Middle With You
Impossible to listen to this song without involuntarily touching your ear remembering the notorious Tarantino soundtrack in Reservoir Dogs
Norman Greenbaum- Spirit in the Sky
Alvin Stradust loved the riff so much he lifte it for “My Coo ca Choo”
C w McCall – Convoy
A song hated by children everywhere. When on a day out and traffic backed up, dad would shout out “looks as though we got ourselves a convoy!”
Spring is upon us . The cold of winter is starting to recede – surely a cue for some old-style, Hollywood glitz?
If you like song and dance, particularly tap dance, then this is your show. Visually it is a sparkling, frothy, fizzy cocktail of mistaken identity and razzle dazzle.
The story is merely a loose framework for episodic spectacle, showcasing some of the best of Irving Berlin’s timeless melodies, namely: Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, Cheek to Cheek, Puttin’ on the Ritz, and Let’s Face the Music and Dance.
Stephen Ridley’s musical direction is impeccable. The choreography is immaculate, featuring dazzling solo dance and stunning unison tap dancing from this wonderfully talented cast.
With great songs, you need great dance. The sparkling choreography, and the syncopation in full cast tap dancing numbers is flawless, courtesy of Kathleen Marshall framed by a superb, memorable set, design by Peter McKintosh. It features revolving Art Deco clock-like motifs , incorporating frantic scene changes from bedrooms to bars then hotels to aircraft. Tim Mitchell’s lighting adds a glamorous veneer. The band , complete with boisterous horns, is a delight. Costumes by Yvonne Milnes and Peter McKintosh are shimmering and sharp.
My recollection of the original story was of the 1935 RKO motion picture where Astaire and Rogers set a defining standard with impossible precision and effortless chemistry, blurring the distinction between acting and dancing. Their feet talk.
It would be unreasonable to ask for that to be replicated. It isn’t, instead we are offered something different. Phillip Attmore (Jerry Travers) is a convincing tap dancer, supple but sharp, opposite him plays Dale Tremont (Amara Okereke). Okereke is visually great with strong vocals and dance but the comic sub plot delights no less.
Producer Horace (James Hume) and his wife Madge (Emma Williams ) are at the centre of the comedy. Williams is brilliant as Madge, with Hume her hapless foil. Belly laughs on a Tuesday evening in Birmingham are difficult to come by but Williams and Hume succeeded time and time again. Their partners in crime are almost as hilarious. Horace’s manservant, Bates (James Clyde) is witheringly dry, and a fine looking woman in drag. Alex Gibson-Giorgio’s gloriously outrageous chef Beddini is superb.
You cannot beat Astaire and Rogers. This production does not aim to. The triumphant opening Putting on the Ritz sets an impossible to standard, yet the ensemble deliver the remaining classics with enthusiasm, vim and verve.
This show excels at farce and is hugely enjoyable for it, a celebration of the diversity and allure of musical theatre. Richard Pitts’, resident director, breathes life and humour into a libretto which is now ninety years old- and is still funny. Quite an achievement. Runs until Sat 7th, then continues on nationwide tour.
Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story- Lichfield Garrick Theatre
*****
“Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story ” has now been touring for thirty five years , celebrating the songs of an artist whose recording career lasted barely two years, but whose music endures some sixty six years after his untimely and tragic death. The popularity of this show- and its music, shows no sign of diminishing.It was one of the earliest jukebox musicals predating the likes of Queen’s “We will rock you” and the Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon”. Although the contemporaneous audience will now be in their 80’s .Holly’s music is ubiquitous in television series of the time, not least BBC’s “Heart beat”, maintaining its presence and popularity.
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The two halves mainly comprise his rise to fame and studio work in the first half, and an extended concert sequence in the second.
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A J Jenks takes the eponymous, demanding, lead role , which requires a performer who can sing, act, play competent electric lead guitar, as well as having a passing resemblance to Buddy Holly himself. Angular and enthusiastic, Jenks is credible and lively in the part, ably supported by a large chorus and band for the big numbers.
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The plot fairly thinly joins the dots between the music, but it is the songs which star. They have transcended their late fifties origins to become standards which by a process of cultural osmosis are as fresh now as they were when written. Rock n roll aficionados will feel the tradition has been well represented, and new generations continue to sign up to the cause.
Amongst numerous satisfying cameos, Marta Miranda delights as Maria Elena ( and others). Joshua Barton marvellously milked the part of the Big Bopper for all it was worth . Thomas Fabián Parrish made the most of scheming producer Norman Petty .The dancers, consistently caught the eye with their dynamism, brio, and crisp movement.
The Garrick’s stage was used to the maximum , with a set which incorporates recording studios, concert halls, radio stations, and living space, providing a fitting sense of occasion, culminating in the theatre stage becoming a concert stage.
There is no secret to this show’s success and longevity, the songs are very strong. Contemporary hits “Shout”, “ La Bamba” and “Johnny B Goode” flesh out the Holly numbers, offering variety, shade and musical context. Classic hits ‘That’ll Be The Day’, ‘Peggy Sue’, ‘Oh Boy!’, ‘Everyday’, ‘Not Fade Away’, ‘Maybe Baby’, ‘True Love Ways’,and ‘Rave On’, do not disappoint.
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Musical Director Christopher Weeks does a fine job delivering an authentic sound with considerable enthusiasm for songs whose original arrangements were quite sparse. Choreographer Miguel Angel (also Rickie Valens and Tyrone Jones)leads a set of willing dancers with style, panache and aplomb.
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Veteran writer and producer Alan Janes is a safe pair of hands for a show boasting technical proficiency and vision for the big set pieces. An enthusiastic opening night house was thrilled by the show, giving it a well deserved Monday night standing ovation and partied like it was 1959. Buddy runs until Saturday 7th March .
I suspect that this Japanese form is as new to many as it is to me. I enclose a copy of an excellent explanation from the equally excellent Verve Poetry team in Birmingham
This article features the winning and shortlisted poems from February’s Poem of the Month, a short (and borrowed) description of what a Zuihitsu is, and includes details of ways you can write more poetry, and support us supporting poets like you.
Speak Now or forever regret it was the theme for this Poem of the Month. Conversations, arguments, opinions, shared secrets, saying what needs saying, oppressed voices, and critique, were posted to us from across the country celebrating one of our greatest human tools, speech.
Interestingly, not many submissions subverted the litany of noise we’re reading, perhaps because enough is being said already, and we need to talk about other things. Which is why this months winning poem Pillow Book Talk: a Zuihitsu for Sei Shónagon — Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana was so refreshing to read, and you need context to understand our thinking….
If you look it up you will learn that Zuihitsu is a Japanese literary form dating from around 1000 A.D. when Sei Shōnagon wrote The Pillow Book, a collection of personal essays woven from fragments of texts, ideas, thoughts, notes and observations.
Zuihitsu is neither prose poem or essay although it can sometimes resemble both. To ‘follow the brush’ suggests a certain not-knowing of what will happen, that whatever might result from the process will be down to discovery rather than plan. There is a strong sense in zuihitsu writing that the creation of order depends on disorder. Zuihitsu demands as its starting point, juxtapositions, fragments, contradictions, random materials and pieces of varying lengths. I like this. This, it seems to me, is also how most things in life are, how people are, how thinking is, how poetry should be.
Written by Cheryl Moskowitz for The Poetry School (Verve Festival Partners)
With this in mind, Alex has formed a poem that questions, praises, learns from, and speaks to Sei Shònagon, and from here, lets herself ‘follow the brush’ in response to the original The Pillow Book. The poem is full of observations; sleep deprivation, aggressive intimacies, lists of ‘things’, and, ingeniously, contains even a poem on Tornados within the poem. The more we read this, the more immersed in it we are. It’s like a film.
It is with a heavy heart that I write to let you know that for the first time in 9 years we have failed to secure the Arts Council funding we need to run the festival we scheduled for May 2026. We have therefore had to postpone the festival.
VERVE POETRY FESTIVAL VOLUNTEER AT AN EARLIER FESTIVAL – CAPTURED BY THOM BARTLEY.
Initially on hearing this I was both upset and angry and I am still sitting with a fair amount of disbelief and gloom. And while a lot of that has now evolved into determination to continue in any way we can, it is unlikely that a festival will now happen before February 2027. We have our heads together towards this end, but nothing concrete yet.
OUR PATRON, JOELLE TAYLOR, PERFORMING AT WATERSTONES BIRMINGHAM AT THE FIRST VERVE POETRY FESTIVAL 9 YEARS AGO.
I am aware that this will disappoint many of you – particularly those who have responded to our open calls for scratch performances Work in Poetry (we have emailed you separately), our annual competition Poem of the Festival (you can read more about how we will proceed with our competition below) along with those who had hopes of appearing, and of course attending.
AUDIENCE DANCING TO THE YMCA AT SELL OUT BIG GAY POETRY NIGHT – CAPTURED THOM BARTLEY.EARLY AUDIENCES MOVED BY POETRY BACK IN THE DAY – CAPTURED BY THOM BARTLEY.
February 2027 will be our 10th birthday. I hope we will be able to return even stronger and can look forward to many more festivals beyond that too. To achieve this we will need to get ourselves on a much better financial footing and will need to make ourselves much less reliant on Arts Council funding in a current climate in which even the very best of the arts are finding it difficult to get the funding they need.
A welcome revival of Peter Quilter’s play, starring Wendi Peters of East Enders fame. It premiered at the Birmingham Rep 21 years ago before transferring to the West End for 200 shows and showing internationally.
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It is based upon the true story of wealthy American socialite, Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), an amateur coloratura soprano, who became known, and often mocked, for her flamboyant performance costumes and poor singing ability. She was described , in the Book of Heroic Failures as: “the world’s worst opera singer…. No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves so completely from the shackles of musical notation“.
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At the age of 76, she booked Carnegie Hall for a recital, and 2,000 fans had to be turned away on the night. Many of the reviews were scathing, and Florence suffered a heart attack and died a few weeks later.
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There was a well cultivated ambivalence as to whether Florence was having a laugh, or was deadly serious. She made eleven professional recordings in the years immediately prior to her death. What was beyond doubt is that she sought to entertain- Wendi Peters captures that perfectly. Injecting irrepressible energy into her role and relishing the saucy tongue in cheek dialogue
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Opera aficionados will recognise” Habanera” from Carmen, “the Laughing Song” from Die Fledermaus, and “the Queen of the Night’s” ” from the Magic Flute- just…
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Florences’ new accompanist, Cosme McMoon ( Matthew James Morrison ) – she sacked the previous one – is the delightful straight man to her manic incarnation .
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The dutiful Italian maid, Maria, ( Caroline Gruber) has to contend with a truly awful wardrobe of costumes designed by Florence herself – such as Little Bo-Peep and the Queen of the Night’s white angel, complete with wings and tiara. Costumier Ingrid Hu may have had something to do with it… and Florence’s friend, Dorothy, ( Sioned Jones) isn’t much help.. Director Kit Jameson has enormous fun with this very funny production- and so does the cast and audience.
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Essential viewing for the Operatic cognoscenti- and those who want a good comic night out. “Glorious” continues in all its glory until 28th February
Constellations – The Studio, Highbury theatre, Sutton Colfdield
****
“Constellations” is a bold, brave production, proof positive that amateur theatre can take on challenging work- and win.
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Written by Nick Payne , a British playwright , Constellations premiered in London in October 2009 before transferring to America and Canada. It explores love, friendship and Time . It only lasts eighty minutes, but packs in more than most shows manage in twice that length. Its originality lies in its dialogue format, endlessly reprised, subtly altered , constantly repeated and nuanced as part of a conventional narrative. If this sounds highbrow, it is. If you fear that it will not be accessible to mere mortals, fear not. It is accessible , playing out as an intellectual romcom. Payne’s debt to Tom Stoppard’s work and style is unmistakable, clever, but not archly so.
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What is it about? Suppose that life exists in a multiverse – a set of parallel existences that contain infinitely different futures. The possibilities in our lives are, endless. Every possible event that could happen, does happen, in one universe or another. And if two lovers meet – are drawn together in every version of existence — every possible happy ending and heartbreak that could befall them will.
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Marianne, a scientist, and Roland, a beekeeper, meet at a party. They hit it off, and go for a drink. Or perhaps they don’t. They go home together, or maybe they go their separate ways. Perhaps Marianne is engaged to someone else, perhaps Roland is. Maybe she breaks his heart, maybe he breaks hers. Perhaps they come together and their love story can finally take root and grow, or perhaps it will be tragically cut short. Constellations, explores how even the smallest change in our lives can dramatically alter the course we take. It is a theme explored in Peter Howitt’s 1998 film “Sliding Doors” with Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah. It is an exploration of love in the multiverse , science, quantum theory, and infinite possibility for heartbreak and hope, where time doesn’t exist.
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A young couple, Marianne and Roland , meet and meet again. Every universe gives a different version, a different look, a different feel to our protagonists. They spend a lifetime milling around each other, but not just in one life. Their lives collide and crash together in an infinite number of lifetimes. Each scene plays again and again, giving a glimpse of the decisions and choices being made in every variation before gently moving on to another point in time.
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Nick Payne writes with depth interlaced with warmth and humour. Though you only see snapshots of Marianne and Roland’s lives, it offers disarming intensity. The dizzying heights of young love, the lows of break up, the joys of a reunion and the gruelling finale. A celestial rollercoaster ride with the only chink being a less than assured foray into end of life suicide.
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Director Ahmed Ali guides his performers with elegance. Presented as a two hander they collectively succeed in making a complex script coherent and manageable. The staging is simple, the only indulgence a glitter ball.
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Isobel Clinton as Marianne, and Henry Revell as Roland, are omnipresent on stage wrestling with successive almost identical lines in a triumph of concentration and application. New thoughts and emotions are signalled by a flick of the lights, mood is established by ambient incidental music, both courtesy of Andy Wilkes.
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This is a stellar production in the most modest of surroundings – a dazzling look at the endless possibilities of love and life, a vindication of Director Ali’s vision which plays for eighty minutes without interval. “Constellations” can be viewed until 21st February, no telescope required.
There is a lazy belief abroad that there is no good modern poetry. This collection, published by Big White Shed, written by Rosemary Drescher, confounds that.
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Her start point is that the sun predates mankind and our planet and will post date us. The giver off life, and probably the architect of our ultimate demise. She takes us on a personal, sensory journey as well as a physical travelogue; from the remote beaches of Kiribati, straddling the international date line, to the golden shores of Morecambe Bay.
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The full page photography is an incidental treat, crisply reproduced and well chosen.
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I met her in person by chance, sat next to each other at Morecambe Poetry Festival, the extracts she read out from this book promised much, and delivers on the page. It takes you by the hand and gently leads you around her world, whilst asking,” What is it like to be You?” on page 25.
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Part eco book, part cerebral philosophy treatise, it teases us to think, it shows, does not tell
Garyswordz 
